


The Siren's Song

by galixr



Category: Broadchurch, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Beaches, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Goddesses, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Minor Violence, Near Death Experiences, Psychological Trauma, Scars, mermaid au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2016-06-13
Packaged: 2018-07-14 21:34:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7191422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galixr/pseuds/galixr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alec Hardy keeps having dreams of a lonely goddess.<br/>-<br/>Written for timepetalsprompts weekly ficlet prompt: Beach Goddess</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Siren's Song

**Author's Note:**

> I experimented with present tense so apologies in advance if there's any mistakes. Unbeta'd so every mistake is my own. 
> 
> TW for brief descriptions of violence,near death experiences, and references to child death.

The wind whips fiercely at Alec Hardy’s face as he squints against the fog. A faint lull of waves and the smell of salt indicates he walks near the shore. He is searching for something, but he doesn’t know what.

  
In the distance, a woman’s voice tugs at his mind. /Come closer/, she whispers. His eyes search into the bleak white nothingness. /Come to the ocean, where you belong/.   
Her voice sounds light and ethereal. She’s soft, blooming like a flower at the very edge of his consciousness. /The Bringer of Life/, she informs him, /the Bad Wolf/.

  
Alec parts his chapped lips and attempts to respond, but his voice remains caught in his throat. Before his sight flashes haunting golden eyes. A dazzling crown of seashells and pearls balances on her delicate, honey-colored tresses. She’s beautiful, wrapping ever inch of his mind in glittering tendrils.

  
Her song reached a crescendo, just as her face was swallowed by dark waves of water. /She forgives you, for the pendant/.

  
Alec awakens with a start, choking for breath. His pupils flash around in the darkness of his bedroom. He pants for air, his heart thumping against his rib cage.   
He swallows a pathetic sob in the back of his throat and wipes clammy hands down his unshaven jaw.

  
The the lightening blue sky peaks through his curtains, telling him dawn is coming. He estimates that he has an hour until he really has to get up, but can’t find it within himself to fall back asleep.

  
He pushes his body off the bed, standing upright and staring out at the blue peak in his curtains. Alec shakes his head. He is trying so desperately to get the dream from out of his head.

  
He can still hear her haunting song, see her gold rimmed eyes. It sends a shiver down his spine, even as his shack is a pleasant 25 degrees Celsius.

  
He swallows once before moving into the kitchen to brew a cup of herbal tea. A taunting voice reminds him that no one is there to share it with him. Alec shakes it away and tilts his head towards the ceiling. He sighs, rubbing absently as his disheveled locks.

  
He puts the kettle on in a fog. His feet lead him out to his waterside view, cool air stinging at his skin and snapping him back to reality.

  
Not that it is any better than his ominous dreams. He teaches a class down at the station, not even allowed into the office area anymore. His only friend (Is she even his friend? He can’t tell anymore.) works as a Police Constable miles and miles away to escape the heavy air of her hometown. She hasn’t contacted him in months. Not that he blames her.   
He’s clad in lose fitting pants and a white shirt. The wind runs itself through his hair, drying the sweaty tips to his forehead. He looks into the dark, swirling water and thinks of that lonely goddess.

  
Alec finally decides that she not worth his time. She’s a random deity from an unsettling dream, nothing more nothing less.

  
He turns on his heel and enters back into the shack. He sighs presently at the warmth of the interior and continues on with his routine, putting the strange woman behind him.

  
-

  
After finishing his forth and final lecture at Broadchurch’s minuscule police academy, Alec chooses to walk home. He doesn’t know why. He knows the mist will soak his fringe and seep into his worn out shoes.

  
He still walks, trekking up to the steep cliffs and letting his mind wander. Every step leaves him more and more winded until he finally reaches the top. He pauses a moment to let his breath even out.

  
Alec looks over the edge, watching the dark water swirl around and crash into a smattering of sharp rocks. He swears he can see a flash of pale flesh and he’s taken aback.

  
A wave of panic rushes through him. His minds offers the grey corpse of young Pippa Galespie and the thumping in his chest increases.

  
A head of long, blonde hair arises from the water, dangerously close to those rocks. She swims against the current and makes her way to the sand.

  
Alec has to rub his eyes to make sure what he’s seeing is real.

  
He swears he is peering at a long, curling tail attached to the woman’s torso. It’s a stunning silvery strip of flesh, extending out from her into the water. He expects a forked tails and thin, fleshy fins, gasping at the smooth, almost unending tail.

  
He blinks and she’s gone.

  
Alec sighs.

  
“Bloody heart,” he whispers, rubbing at his temples.

  
Something eery in the air tells him that it’s not his bummy heart that caused his unreal vision. He ignores it and starts his track back to the blue shack.

  
-

  
That night he dreams of her again.

  
Alec’s walking on that same foggy beach. He inhales, salt stinging sharp at his nose. The air is heavy and damp, weighing down the his hair and plastering it to his forehead.

  
And then she appears there with him. She’s holding his hand, strolling down the white sand beach. Her hair is pulled into two tight braids, her body wrapped in a vibrant blue cloth. A high collar of intricate beading gleams golden on her slender neck.

  
“How’d you-” Alec starts.

  
/Shhh/. comes a gentle hush in his mind. Her full lips never move, yet he hears her feminine whisper.

  
She turns to face him and a deep chill goes down his spine. Her eyes, those gold ringed eyes, they are filled with a twisting and turning so beyond him that he can’t help but gasp.   
A soft giggle comes into his ear. She covers her mouth with frail fingers.

  
Then she’s leaning towards him, cupping his face. Her lips ghost over his.

  
The song from before fills his mind at full volume, his ears ringing at the unusually high pitch. His lips are on fire. They burst with some unknown energy. It spread to his every inch of his body until he swears he can feel earth turning beneath his feet. He looks back at the lonely goddess and golden waves are flowing around her body.

  
/Come back to me, Doctor/.

  
A wave of water swallows him. It douses ever crevice of his body, filling into his lungs and seeping into his bones.

  
He fights against the water, only to have it push him under again. His arms are extended in from of him. He can feel the dead weight of an eleven year old girl on them.

  
Alec awakens with a harsh cry. His throat tastes of salt and iron. His eyes dart around the darkened room, searching for some form of comfort in that lonely seaside shack.

  
He finds no loving hands, no soothing words as a soft thumb strokes his knuckle. He listens for the hum of the highway that used to lull him to sleep, but all he hears is the gentle lapping of waves and calls of early morning seagulls. His tongue tastes the sea air and suddenly he’s homesick.

  
Alec longs for the crowded station of South Mercia. He misses the busy streets where he could get lost in the crowd. His heart aches for his home, where Tess would massage the knots from his back as they ranted about work problems. He wants Daisy most of all. He wants her fascinated smile, her auburn hair that looks so much like his, her curious eyes peering into his after a long night of story time.

  
Alec’s repressed sob rips up his dry throat. His cry is strangled and raspy.

  
“Oh god,” he mumbles to himself, running a hand down his face.

  
Pathetic tears come running down his cheeks. He grits his teeth a lets out a frustrated groan.

  
“Bloody hell,” he rasps. “Keep it together.”

  
Alec bunches the fabric in his pillow and he has the urge to rip it into a billion tiny pieces. His lets another groan emit from his mouth before swallowing hard.

  
His breathing calms to a normal pace as his stare fixates on the ceiling fan. His eyes feel weighted and heavy. Tiredness gives out to his rage and falls back into a dreamless sleep.

  
-

  
Seven day Alec’s dreamed of her. Seven days of haunting eyes and inexplicable burning. Seven nights of waking up after feeling the sea crash into his tired, aching body.

  
He fears going to sleep now. His nights consist of endless staring and thumbing over the Sandbrook file. He reads it until he can recite it by memory and then he recites it until his mouth becomes dry. For hours his mind is racked with failure before falling into unconsciousness, only to be plagued by the lonely goddess.

  
The eighth night she meets him again on the beach. She’s dressed in a simple white sundress and her hair flows in the wind. Her eyes are the color of dark honey, free from the golden presence of the Bad Wolf.

  
“I like you Alec,” she states. Her mouth moves and her voice is single toned. He feels his heartbeat calm in his chest.

  
“Who are you?” he asks, his accent rolling over his words.

  
“I’m Rose,” she tells him, “but you know me as the Bad Wolf.” At her words, the gold band around her pupils flares and dies in an instant. She shoots him a reassuring smile and squeezes his hand.

  
“I’m here because I’m looking for someone,” Rose says. “You know him, you see him everyday.”

  
“Who?” Alec questions.

  
His toes sink into the soft brown sand. They’re patrolling the edges of Broadchurch’s coast this time. The cliffs tower above them with the great waves licking at their bases. Not too far in the distance he can see the spot where eleven year old Daniel Latimer’s lifeless body was found.

  
“He’s called the Doctor. He goes by many names, the Oncoming Storm, the Destroyer of Worlds, Theta…” she trails, looking Alec up and down. “He strongly resembles you.”

  
She caresses his cheeks with her free hand, stopping them both in their tracks. Her eyes are dancing with love, but he knows it’s for someone else.

  
“You can find him for me, you just have locate a little fob watch.” Rose bites her lip, bringing the hand back to intertwine with his.

  
“A fob watch? I don’t even think I have a fob watch,” he says.

  
“Yeah, you do. You just gotta look.”

  
A moment of silence passed between them. The sound of the waves becomes deafening, water washing up onto their feet.

  
“You see, they’re tricky things. They don’t want to be found, but you’ve gotta look really hard,” Rose says softly. “Then you have to bring it to me.”

  
“But how?” he asks, eyebrows knitting in confusion.

  
She looks beyond him, into the horizon and her gaze burns gold.

  
“Meet me at the Briar Cliff hut tomorrow. Just outside the doors, when the clock strikes ten I’ll be there.”

  
Alec still looks perplexed. 

  
“But why?” he inquires.

  
“Shh,” she hushes, leaning in until there is just millimeters between them. Her eyes travel to his lips.

  
Her fingers move to cup his unshaven jawline and he feels a harsh prick against his skin just beneath his left ear. Rose sharply backs away from him. She giggles, turning to run full speed into the water.

  
Alec stands at the shore, looking perplexed as she’s swallowed by a wave of water. He sees her feet transform into a silvery strip of flesh just before she disappears.   
The wave is rushing towards him, yet this time he doesn’t run. He holds his arms out wide letting every droplet consume him.

  
When he wakes, he feels for the cut behind his ear. He isn’t surprised to find crimson blood on his fingers.

  
-

  
Alec ransacks his shack for the fob watch. He turns his kitchen upside down and tears apart his bathroom. He spend three hours looking for it before giving up with a heavy sigh, plopping to the floor in defeat.

  
His weight on the hardwood floors shift a board beneath him. He turns to examine it with a tired eyes. His hands yank the lose wood upwards and nestled in his floors is a glittering fob watch. He pockets it with a smile, forcing himself up with shaky legs.

  
-

  
At 9:30 pm Alec dresses in his best suit and head out for the cliffs. He nervously tinkers with the metal in his palm. It’s smooth covering shines so brightly in the moonlight.   
He begins his journey up the steep cliff, praying that his agreement with the lonely goddess will give him some relief.

  
He takes a moment to examine exactly how ludicrous the situation actually is. Alec Hardy, the self proclaimed man with no God is paying his respects to a haunting deity. His throat swallows hard at the prospect, considering turning back, but there’s a tug at his mind.

  
/Come back to me/.

  
Every step seems torturous. His exhausted muscles fighting the urge to collapse into the grass.

  
His mind does a tally of the hours of sleep he’s gotten in the last week. Three hours and thirteen minutes, he calculates. His mind is bone tired.

  
Alec grits his teeth and thinks of Daisy. He thinks of the way she used to beg him to get 99’s on hot afternoons, how she would stick her tongue out whenever she was concentrated. He pushes on with agony in his steps.

  
The Briar Hut Clifftop is a sting to his fragile heart. He closes hey eyes, seeing Danny’s pale body laying in the sand. Alec can’t help but replace him with his own daughter. He squeezes his eyelids tights, hoping his delusions rid of him soon.

  
The Bad Wolf appears just as the moon is shining over them. She clothed in a garment made of pure white pearls. A crown of seashells and raw gems sit upon her curled, blonde locks. Alec feels breath leave him as she parts her full lips to speak.

  
“/The time is come,/” she says. Her voice in two toned and pure. It sounds like angel singing softly to him, lulling him into her arms.

  
Alec falls to his knees, feeling her essence wash over every inch of his consciousness. He looks up and tears of awe fall down his fiercely gaunt face.

  
His face looks so worn, bathed in silver light. A weeks worth of sleepless nights are not kind on the man’s pale skin. The skin beneath his eyes shines soft lilac. His facial hair has become twisted in its record breaking length. Even his hair is knotted. It sits out of place atop his head, ruffling in the sea breeze.

  
The Bad Wolf softens her smoldering gaze. She moves towards him, feet not touching the sodden grass.

  
“/Open the fob watch. Come back to me, Doctor/,” she whispers.

  
Alec holds the device up to her, clicking it open as they both state with bated breath.   
He continues to watch, eyes darting from her face to the metal in his shaking palms. It lays still while the lonely goddess holds an expectant face.

  
Her smile fades as the uneventful seconds tick by. The gold ream around her eyes is flaring and violent, reminding him of a turbulent storm. She back away from him. Her mouth curls into a menacing hiss, sharp canines glistening in the silver moon.

  
She reached her lefts arm out towards his kneeling figure. Her hand aims for his neck, closing in on his fragile throat. Alec chokes for breath as he desperately claws at her. The Bad Wolf’s free hand comes around and strikes him once across his chest.

  
“/How dare you, stupid human! I am the Bad Wolf, the Bringer of Life/!” she shouts, pressing harder onto his windpipe.

  
He emits a strangled noise, dark spots beginning to dot his vision.

  
“/I am the the Lost Goddess as Sea! I have defeated the last great Dalek emperor and I will defeat you too! You’re not him, you will never be him/!” Her eyes are burning white now, the light completely swallowing her pupils. She curls her lips into a wicked smile, once again revealing her razor sharp canines.

  
“Rose, please,” Alec gasps with his last bit of breath.

  
With his words, the Bad Wolf’s eyes dim. She releases her hold on his throat and brings her hand to her lips. Her breath catches and she looks down as if she’s examining herself.

“/What have I done/?” she whispers.

  
Alec lay on the ground. He clutches his chest, heaving in dry breath. His vision is swimming as he drags himself across the grass.

  
“/T-this is my fault! My mistake! I-I’m so sorry/!” she’s exclaiming. Her body rushes towards him, gaze shining with worry.

  
“/I’m sorry, Alec/.” she whispers, caressing his face. Her touch is soft and illuminated, wiping away the blood from a cut on his cheek. It heals beneath her touch as she shoots him a gentle smile.

  
Her fingers ghost on the torn fabric over his chest. She heals the wound there and presses an affectionate kiss to his forehead. “/This is my fault. I must leave now to find my Doctor. I am sorry Alec Hardy, you never deserved this/.” Her voice is calming, yet sad.

  
Alec can barely comprehend the event. His ears are still ringing while his blinks, trying to clear his line of sight. His entire body is on fire with pain and exhaustion.

  
“/Goodbye, Alec/,” she whispers. “/Forgive me/.”

  
The last thing he sees is her golden face disappearing into nothingness.

  
-

  
Alec wakes the next morning carefully tucked into his bed. He’s dressed in a soft, white robe. His hair is neatly combed and his beard is trimmed. He feels rested despite the trials of his past week.

  
He slowly gets up from his bed, rubbing over his chest, checking for damage that had been done the night previous. He touches three white slash marks and shivers at the thought of the lonely goddess.

  
His head is still spinning, reeling with an unsettled aura. He notes his lack of sleep and doubts briefly if any of it even happened, but the scars on his chest prove that false.

  
Alec bounds towards the kitchen and picks up his mobile. He’s overcome with the sudden urge to hear Daisy’s small voice, even if it’s just her voicemail. He punches in her familiar number and presses it hastily to his ear.

  
It rings three times before the line picks up.

  
“Dad, it’s early, what are you calling for?” she questions.

  
Alec gasp at the sound of her voice as he didn’t expect her to pick up. He pauses, before letting a scratchy reply come from his throat.

  
“I don’t know


End file.
